Frequently Asked Questions

Applying

Who qualifies for participation?

Your company must have been incorporated before Jan. 1, 2015 and have at least 25 U.S. employees to participate. Your company must also be headquartered in the United States (if you are a global company, we will only survey your U.S. employees). Franchises should only count and survey their corporate U.S. employees.

Your primary contact must use the company’s email address to sign up. This person must have permission to provide employee email addresses and access survey data. To protect your data, we reserve the right to disqualify companies if they do not provide an internal contact.

Someone (such as a PR representative) can complete the registration form on behalf of the internal contact, but all future steps must be completed by the internal contact.

Will all participating companies be ranked?

Not all participating companies will be included in the ranking. Entrepreneur and CultureIQ will determine the ranking based on employee responses to a survey.

How much does it cost?

Participation in the Top Company Cultures list is completely free! All participants receive a complimentary sample of their results, which includes the overall CultureIQ Score, the 10 quality scores, and your employee Net Promoter Score.

You may upgrade your participation to unlock additional features and data, such as employee comments and question-by-question results.

How long will it take me to apply?

The application and setup is straightforward, and should take no longer than 10 minutes. The setup involves registering for the ranking and configuring your employee survey. We will be in touch throughout the process to keep you updated on any remaining steps.

Can I cancel my application?

You can cancel your application at any point in the process. Please contact us at TCCsupport@cultureiq.com to do so. Remember, we will not send anything to employees until you confirm your survey.

Can I edit my application once I submit?

The main point of contact can edit your application from your participant dashboard up until noon of your selected survey start date.

SURVEY

Is the survey anonymous?

It sure is! We take anonymity very seriously, and we never share identifying information about individual employees. Please read our anonymity policy for more information.

How long is the survey?

The survey includes 21 multiple choice questions and one open response question. It should take between 3 to 5 minutes to complete. Each question has an optional comment box.

Can I customize the survey for my company?

In order to compare scores fairly across all participating companies, the survey questions cannot be edited or removed. You have the opportunity to include optional demographic questions in your survey.

How do employees take the survey?

Employees will receive the survey through email. They can complete their survey on a desktop, tablet, or mobile device.

The link provided to each employee in the survey emails is a uniquelink that can only be used once. This ensures that individuals cannot take the survey multiple times.

What do you do with employee email addresses?

We respect employee inboxes and privacy. Employees are not required to register for an account of any kind, and we will only send them the survey and reminder emails.

Where do survey emails come from?

The survey emails come from topcompanycultures@cultureiq.com. Please clear this email with your IT department to ensure that survey emails do not get blocked by spam filters.

Does the survey work on any browser?

The survey works on Internet Explorer 9 and above, and the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

What do the emails to employees look like?

The survey emails look like this.

Oops, I forgot a few employees. Can I add them in our email list?

Yes, you can re-load your spreadsheet up to two hours before the survey goes live. After this point, you cannot update your employee email list.

What response rate do I need?

The response rate depends on the size of your company. For companies with 25-49 employees, you need to achieve an 89% response rate, for companies with 50-79 employees, you need to achieve a 80% response rate, for companies with 80-199, you need achieve achieve a 70% response rate, for companies with 200-399 employees, you need a 50% response rate. For companies over 400 employees, please reference the question below about random sampling.

You will still receive your complimentary results overview regardless of if you achieve a high response rate. We send reminders every other business day to employees who have not responded throughout your selected survey window. If you are concerned about response rates, we encourage you to send internal reminders as well.

We have a lot of employees, can we send a random sample?

For companies over 400 employees, we can survey a random sample. CultureIQ will choose the sample to ensure that it is randomly chosen. Please contact TCCsupport@cultureiq.com if you would like to survey a random sample.

See the slider below for the size of your sample.

400

Number of Employees:

1000

Minimum number of employees to survey:

Can I extend the survey window?

Each survey window is two weeks. You cannot extend this window.

Can I track who has and has not taken the survey?

You will receive response rate updates throughout the survey window. This information is also accessible on your administration page. As part of our anonymity policy, we do not provide the identity of who has and has not completed the survey.

Can I end the survey early?

You can end the survey early if you cancel your participation in Top Company Cultures. If you cancel your participation in Top Company Cultures, you will no longer receive the complimentary results overview. In order to cancel your participation, please contact us using the Support button at the bottom right of this page.

RANKING & RESULTS

How do you measure culture?

We measure 10 qualities that are common to high-performance organizations. We define a high-performance organization as one that achieves better financial and non-financial results that those of its peers over a long period of time. Non-financial results include employee engagement, retention, and talent acquisition. For more information, read about our methodology here.

How is the survey data used?

The survey will be used to determine the Top Company Cultures list, which will be published in Entrepreneur. It will also be used for related content and benchmarking. Your employee information is confidential.

How is the list determined?

The Top Company Cultures list will be determined by employee responses to the CultureIQ survey. The CultureIQ Survey measures qualities common to a high-performance company.

What information do I receive by participating?

As part of your participation in the Top Company Cultures, you will receive a complimentary overview of your results. This will include your overall CultureIQ score, your employee Net Promoter Score, and scores by culture quality.

With an upgrade, you would receive question-by-question responses, all employee comments, and optional access to the CultureIQ culture engagement platform.

When will I find out if I make the list?

If your company makes the list, you will receive an email notifying you before the list is published in Entrepreneur.